Backup or transfer your Chrome Extensions to a new installation or another PC with Share Extensions

If you are using a lot of extensions in Chrome, which is the main reason one would prefer Chrome after all, you may like to save them somehow to use them again in case you reset Windows or you setup Chrome on another PC, etc. Unfortunately Chrome won’t let you export and import extensions; to avoid security risks Chrome installs extensions only from the Store.

If you are a developer, you can try extensions even by copying and pasting them to the relevant location in the User Data folder of Chrome; however, each time you start Chrome, the browser asks you to disable all extensions “installed” this way! You cannot work like this for a long time, unless you are actually developing some extension. The only viable solution up to now would be to save a list of your extensions and their addresses in Google Store, to install them to Chrome one by one by visiting the Store. It sounds complex or time consuming, but it’s really simple and fast.

I use 28 extensions and I didn’t need more than 5-6 minutes to add all of them to a new installation of Chrome. The problem is with those extensions that need some configuration. It would be wise to save their settings in plain text files to copy and paste them where needed. In any case such extensions are rather few, the rest are used as they are or after a simple selection of some options.

Share Extensions creates precisely a list of your extensions in HTML, BBcode, Text, Wiki or Markdown styles. You can copy the results and save them to use them as you wish. HTML is fine when your aim is to reload your extensions in another installation of Chrome. Open this HTML list in the browser and click one entry after another to visit Google Store and load your extensions fast, safely and easily. Enjoy!